Date(s) June 7–10, 1892 | ||
Vice Presidential nominee Whitelaw Reid of New York |
The 1892 National Convention of the Republican Party of the United States was held at the Industrial Exposition Building, Minneapolis, Minnesota, from June 7 to June 10, 1892. The party nominated President Benjamin Harrison for re-election on the first ballot and Whitelaw Reid of New York for Vice President.
Contents
James S. Clarkson of Iowa was the outgoing chairman of the Republican National Committee. J. Sloat Fassett of New York was Temporary Chairman, and Governor William McKinley Jr. of Ohio was the Permanent Chair of the convention.
Harrison's Secretary of State James G. Blaine, who had resigned from the cabinet on June 4, 1892, the eve of the convention, had his name submitted for consideration by the delegates, but drew little support. Future president William McKinley tied Blaine for second place among the delegates.
Although successful in his bid for renomination, President Harrison's performance was underwhelming for an incumbent due in part to the crushing defeat that the party's Congressional candidates had met in the 1890 off-year elections. He lost the fall 1892 election to former president Grover Cleveland.
The 1892 RNC was also the first convention where women were allowed to be delegates. Therese Alberta (Parkinson) Jenkins, delegate from Wyoming, cast the first vote by a woman for president. Wyoming had granted full suffrage for women at statehood in 1890.
Presidential ballot
Source: US President - R Convention. Our Campaigns. (January 8, 2010). Source: US Vice President - R Convention. Our Campaigns. (September 7, 2009).
Vice presidential ballot
Incumbent Vice President Levi Morton was dumped from the ticket, as Harrison was not particularly fond of Morton and Morton was closer to Blaine supporters. Morton was replaced by Ohioan and Ambassador, Whitelaw Reid. This was also the first and so far only time in U.S. Political History where the Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominees were both graduates from the same university. Harrison and Reid were graduates of Miami University located in Oxford, Ohio
Republican Party Platform
The Republican platform supported high tariffs, bimetallism, stiffer immigration laws, free rural mail delivery, and a canal across Central America. It also expressed sympathy for the Irish Home Rule Movement and the plight of Jews under persecution in czarist Russia.
We reaffirm the American doctrine of protection. We call attention to its growth abroad. We maintain that the prosperous condition of our country is largely due to the wise revenue legislation of the Republican Congress.We believe that all articles which cannot be produced in the United States, except luxuries, should be admitted free of duty, and that all imports coming into competition with the products of American labor, there should be levied duties equal to the difference between wages abroad and at home. We assert that the prices of manufactured articles of general consumption have been reduced under the operations of the tariff act of 1890.We denounce the efforts of the Democratic majority of the House of Representatives to destroy our tariff laws by piecemeal, as manifested by their attacks upon wool, lead and lead ores, the chief products of a number of States, and we ask the people for their judgement thereon.We point to the success of the Republican policy of reciprocity, under which our export trade has vastly increased and new and enlarged markets have been opened for the products of our farms and workshops. We remind the people of the bitter opposition of the Democratic party to this practical business measure, and claim that, executed by a Republican administration, our present laws will eventually give us control of the trade of the world.The American people, from tradition and interest, favor bi-metallism, and the Republican party demands the use of both gold and silver as standard money, with such restrictions and under such provisions, to be determined by legislation, as will secure the maintenance of the parity of values of the two metals so that the purchasing and debt-paying power of the dollar, whether of silver, gold, or paper, shall be at all times equal. The interests of the producers of the country, its farmers and its workingmen, demand that every dollar, paper or coin, issued by the government, shall be as good as any other.We commend the wise and patriotic steps already taken by our government to secure an international conference, to adopt such measures as will insure a parity of value between gold and silver for use as money throughout the world.We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to cast one free and unrestricted ballot in all public elections, and that such ballot shall be counted and returned as cast; that such laws shall be enacted and enforced as will secure to every citizen, be he rich or poor, native or foreign-born, white or black, this sovereign right, guaranteed by the Constitution. The free and honest popular ballot, the just and equal representation of all the people, as well as their just and equal protection under the laws, are the foundation of our Republican institutions, and the party will never relax its efforts until the integrity of the ballot and the purity of elections shall be fully guaranteed and protected in every State.